Digital marketing offers equal opportunity for growth to all businesses – big or small. It offers your business multiple ways to directly engage with clients, and also target new ones. It is the bread and butter of modern businesses, offering great returns in place of very little investment.
Let’s discuss the 10 pillars of digital marketing that will be extremely important for the growth of businesses in the coming times.
1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is among the most important types of digital marketing for your business. It is the art of ensuring that your web pages or articles feature at the top of the search results of search engines like Google and Bing. The process typically involves emphasizing certain keywords or phrases within your content that align with the popular search trends on Google and Bing. The channels that benefit from SEO include websites, blogs, and infographics.
It is also important that one does not go overboard with these keywords. Forcing keywords can make the copy seem unnatural, causing the overall quality of your content to drop. It is necessary to maintain the quality of your content at all times for SEO to be helpful.
It is estimated that approximately 81% of shoppers conduct online research before making any sort of purchase. If you want to reach people online and boost your sales, you need to ensure that SEO is a business priority.
Read more about Seo in our blog SEO STRATEGIES: 5 STEPS THAT WORKS
2. Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
Pay Per Click or PPC is the method of driving traffic to your website by paying the publisher, every time your ad is clicked. PPC is like the paid version of SEO. One of the most common types of PPC is Google Ads. It allows you to pay for top slots on Google’s SERPs. Other mediums include paid ads on Facebook, Twitter ad campaigns, and sponsored messages on LinkedIn.
PPC is quite similar to Search Engine Marketing (SEM), but can also include display advertising and affiliate advertising.
3. Content Marketing
Content Marketing is digital marketing that focuses on creating and promoting different types of content, to generate leads and sales. The content can be in the form of a blog, social media posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, etc. The content is SEO-heavy and user-friendly and organically attracts new clients.
You must keep your target audience in mind if you want your content marketing to work well. Quality content not only helps boost sales, but also builds brand reputation, trust, and loyalty. All channels of digital marketing are heavily dependent on the content. SEO, SEM, social media marketing, email marketing, and PPC cannot exist if one does not have business-specific content. Check out our blog about content marketing: Content Marketing: 6 Strategies for Great Content
4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
As mentioned above, Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the paid version of SEO. With the help of SEM, a company can purchase advertising space that appears on the SERPs. Creating a link between SEO and PPC is an integral part of Search Engine Marketing.
It is easy to recognize paid search results on Google. A little “Ad” sign appears at the beginning of the URL, and the search giant also puts these pages first in the search results.
By maintaining a combination of SEO and SEM, you can boost traffic to your website and increase your Click Through Rate (CTR).
5. Social Media Marketing
Social media is a crucial part of the digital marketing strategy of every organization. By promoting your brand on various social media channels, you boost traffic to your website and social media pages, generate leads, and also increase brand awareness.
Social media marketing overlaps with various other forms of digital marketing such as SEO, SEM, PPC, and Content Marketing.
The channels to use for social media marketing are as follows: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest.
6. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the upcoming forms of digital marketing. It makes use of people with an enormous following on their social media accounts. Businesses can hire these influencers to promote their products/websites.
The influencer serves as your brand ambassador. However, one does not need to specifically hire celebrities for influencer marketing, although a lot of big brands do it these days. If you’re a smaller brand, a popular person on social media with a few thousand loyal followers can also be used. When done right, the scope of influencer marketing is huge.
7. Email Marketing
Email marketing pertains to sending emails to your client base to promote the business. One way to build on email marketing is to use a newsletter. You can ask people to sign up for the newsletter when they come to your website. You could then use this platform to send them regular updates about your products and services.
The best email marketing campaigns involve a list of subscribers earned by your content, and not paid for by the company. Understand that the users who subscribe on their own, are most likely to engage with your brand, and it is them you should target properly. Email marketing can be used to create brand awareness, build a loyal clientele, and take honest feedback from your customers.
8. Mobile Marketing
Nowadays, people use their smartphones more than any other gadget. Their mobiles are a one-stop platform that offers all the convenience required. So, why not make use of this to target a potential client base?
Mobile marketing can be done through an app or SMS. Apps are increasingly popular among mobile phone users and can serve the same purpose as your website. More people might engage with your app than they do with the website. It is thus important to create a simple, user-friendly, and intuitive app. You can also send regular push notifications through the app. This will keep them engaged with your product. Meanwhile, SMS can be used to make people aware of special offers and coupons. It can also be used to target people who don’t own a smartphone.
9. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a type of digital marketing wherein a business partners up with another business and promotes it on its website/app. Essentially, affiliate marketers sell other people’s products and receive a commission when a lead is generated.
Working with affiliates can help you to expand your reach. It can also make your marketing efforts seem more organic. For example, the Indian travel company MakeMyTrip has been running an affiliate program as part of its digital marketing strategy for years. Those interested can partner quickly with the company and earn revenue whenever they help convert a lead.
10. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Marketing
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) marketing is another upcoming form of digital marketing. It involves making use of these hot fields of technology to attract clients. AR and VR marketing is expensive at the moment and one should only go for it if they have the budget and also something extraordinary to offer. For example, IKEA makes use of AR marketing and allows its customers to see how different furniture looks in their homes.
As we continue to head towards digitization, the scope of digital marketing will only go up. Most types of digital marketing techniques are interrelated and codependent on each other. A business needs to understand which one suits its long-term goal best and strategize accordingly.
